


Stormlight Fragments

by Hitsugi_Zirkus



Series: Halcyon: Sormik Week 2016 [4]
Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, M/M, Mental Instability, POV Second Person, Post-Canon, Reincarnation, Soulmates, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 06:33:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8133848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hitsugi_Zirkus/pseuds/Hitsugi_Zirkus
Summary: Everything about his appearance is different, just as yours is. Mikleo had waited for Sorey for centuries. He just didn't realize until their next life that Sorey had been waiting for him too. (Super Late) Prompt Fill for Sormik Week Day 6: Lightening





	

**Author's Note:**

> And now for something a little different. I...really wasn’t feeling mentally okay a few days ago and when I write in that state, it’s always a vent of sorts in the second person POV. Why? Well, I’m not sure, but it just helps me. Something about it being personal yet indirect, I suppose. (I feel better now though!) Nonetheless, I hope this fic is enjoyable to read!

The sheep keychain works.

The guy likes sheep, after all. He already  _ has  _ a keychain of the fluffy animal swinging from his backpack -- you see it every time he flops his bag down on the ground when he sits next to you in the group circle. When he zips and unzips his jacket in a nervous tic throughout the meeting, you see the cartoon sheep rolling in the stripes of his shirt. 

What a weird and childish taste. You don’t remember the sheep being a thing with  _ him _ . Maybe it’s a very dry irony. 

Admittedly, you think it’s cute. 

So at the movie store right up the street from the dorms, you’re in the middle of getting the documentary you need to watch for your art history class (its online but it looks interesting enough that you want a physical copy) when you see the rubber sheep danging from a chain, little Z’s on top of its head to show it sleeping. 

You purchase it and the documentary and head back to the dorms. You’re on the sixth floor but today you ride the elevator higher to the eighth. 

This was  _ your  _ idea. If it was anyone else that you saw outside the group, you would avoid contact with them at all costs. Outside that circle, you’re supposed the normal, mentally healthy person you’ve been trying to pass off as since the visions started. 

But the guy is in your art history class and all notions of being  _ normal  _ go out the window and you think this is it, your opening, you can  _ finally  _ get answers -- although if he’s not who you think he is, you don’t know what you’ll do. Maybe you’ll finally crack and be the loon the adults think you are.  _ You _ kind of think you’re a loon to be honest, but this spider’s thread of hope is being presented to you at last and you don’t plan to let it go.

So you offer him to watch the assigned documentary together and he obviously recognizes you from the group (and unfortunately nowhere else,  _ dammit what if this is a mistake _ , but you tell yourself to be patient). He agrees with a smile, and its different from the one of  _ before _ , but then again, everything about his appearance is  _ different,  _ just as yours is. Still, the spread of his lips is something that you know is suited to be framed by sunlight and Milky Way stars and feathers, a smile with a million snapshots in your head, and you lose your breath long enough to almost miss what he says.

“My roommate is gone this weekend,” he tells you. “You can come up to my room if you want.”

You tell yourself you won’t expose all your crazy at once. Not counting class, you have to see this guy every Saturday for two hours, so if you screw this up, it would be  _ very  _ hard to look him in the eye again -- not that you’re any stranger to the fine art of aggressively making yourself invisible. It’s always been about closing off the buzz of voices and pictures in your head, remembering who you are  _ now _ , not  _ then _ .

You have a hunch you’re following though, and when he picks you up from the elevator lobby to let you into the eighth-floor hall with his school card, you two head to his room without you managing to push him against the wall and interrogate him all at once. It kind of hurts that you  _ have to ask _ , that he doesn’t just  _ know  _ like you do -- but again, you have to be patient.

“Hey, I got you something. You don’t have to keep it or anything, but it reminded me of you and...” You give him the sheep keychain, hoping he won’t think you’re weird. He never was the type to laugh in your face, but you’re still relieved when he smiles wide at the gift. 

“Aww, it’s so cute, thank you~! Haha, is it really that obvious that I have an obsession?” 

At first you just laugh it off but then you walk into his room, and immediately know by the worn sheep pillow and the sheep-patterned pajama pants peeking from a drawer which side between him and his roommate is his. 

“Maybe,” you say. “Just a bit.” 

“Ah-ha… I guess I don’t hide it that well. What if I said I like counting them so I can actually get some sleep at night?” He offers you a seat on his bed as he sits on his desk chair and right away starts attaching your gift to his bag. 

You stare at his face. He doesn’t look exhausted, not on the surface. He hides it with his smile and how he lilts his words, but his eyes can’t focus on anything in front of him and he keeps sighing very quietly under his breath. He said that question rhetorically, but you see how serious he really was about it. Lack of sleep is something you can empathize with. 

You pull the sheep pillow to your lap, feeling over the soft patterned wool.  _ You’re not going to let out your crazy all at once,  _ you remind yourself yet again. You don’t even know what he’s in the therapy group  _ for,  _ so to assume anything would be... 

_ It’s been this long -- long enough to forget, but it doesn’t mean I don’t have it engraved in my very soul what I’m looking for _ . 

The thought is yours, coming from some deep ocean ruin within the fragments of your being.

Water always makes you feel calm. At the beach, you can sit in the sand and feel yourself drift a thousand miles away by the wash of the waves. But you can’t tell your mom to take the two-hour long drive to the beach every time your anxiety spiked from remembering something, or rather, someone, someone that you  _ have  _ to look for who is not beside you, and you have _ no idea  _ how to even  _ begin  _ looking for him, _ where is he, where is he, please I have to find him, he’s all alone _ \--!

Sometimes you fill the bathtub as much as you can and just sit in there, numbly staring at the ripples from the dripping faucet. The tub is too small for you to stretch out and submerge yourself, but you do fantasize about being able to sink down, away from this world. Maybe you’d splash to the surface of the one that played inside your head. 

Under the water, you hear nothing but your own heartbeat, the whisper of ancient pains and yearning filling every pulse.

Out here in the city though, oceans are even further away than before. The community bathrooms in the dorms only offer shower stalls. There are pools in the gym but going there would involve being around  _ people  _ and the thought of them seeing you doing something akin to drowning yourself didn’t sound appealing in the least. You’re in college now, and you want this fresh start, but the fact is  _ nothing  _ is getting better, and as a matter of fact, the images -- the  _ memories _ \-- get more vivid every day.

You finally pull out the documentary from your bag and he actually looks excited that you have a physical copy, calling you lucky. He places the disc in his laptop and well, you have to curl up next to him on the bed to get a good view. 

Your thighs and shoulders touch and you hug his sheep closer to your face so that he doesn’t have to see your cheeks growing red. The pillow smells sweet, like vanilla. Being next to him, you can confirm that the scent he has is the same. 

_ Do you still like the taste of my vanilla soft serve? _ You screw your eyes shut. You’ve never made soft serve in your life. In  _ this  _ life, anyway.

_ Don’t get ahead of yourself _ . 

You’re going to start slow. Nice and easy. Testing the waters, as it were. But still, when you open your eyes, you say, “Do you believe in angels?”

_ He’s  _ being a good student and actually focusing on the documentary. As a matter of fact, he seems deeply fascinated by the contents, eyes wide and studying each new piece that is shown, nodding in agreement with the commentary of the narration. You feel bad for making him break concentration as he brings attention to your question.

“Angels? Uh -- like wings, halos, the whole deal?”

“Well, I mean there’s different kinds of angels depicted in art, literature, and religion.” You nod to the documentary showing off a gallery of Renaissance paintings of the heavenly creatures. “Like cherubs. Seraphim.” 

“Sera...phim...,” he echoes, as if being given permission to say a forbidden word. His hand comes up to his jacket’s zipper, and he does his zipping/unzipping thing. “I’ve -- heard of those.”

You clutch onto that, snapping your gaze to him. “Do you believe in them?”

“I mean, they’re in the history books, so of course they existed. I have a few on them.” He points to his shelf, but doesn’t look at their well-worn spines. “But you know, I gotta wonder how accurate the descriptions are. There are still people out there that have seraphim blood in them, yet some of these books say things like seraphim had six wings, and were even on fire. Like, I know it’s been thousands of years, but come on, right?” He cocks a smile at you, finding the description amusing.

You have to admit, you do too. It releases some of the tension you’d been feeling. The back of your neck is starting to feel sweaty too. You’re nervous. “I don’t think the seraphim would appreciate being on fire, much less having that as a genetic trait,” you say. “The wings though.  _ Those  _ could come in handy.”

“Yeah,” your companion exhales in amusement, “I can think of several times that would’ve been helpful.” His lips sew together, and he looks like he’s chastising himself. He starts over. “They would’ve looked really beautiful too. Not that being wingless made you any less--” He stops and closes his eyes as he zips and unzips at a faster pace. “ _ Fuck _ . God, no, sorry. Forget I said that.” 

Ha. You don’t have enough fingers to count how many times you’ve said that apology in your life. Being confused where you were and asking directions for a city that hadn’t existed for a thousand years, frowning at inaccuracies you read in history books, waiting for water to move when you stared at it, asking your own mom where  _ he  _ was -- every time closing your mouth, apologizing, hoping no one would think you’re crazy because day by day your line between reality and memories blurred more and more.

The documentary keeps playing. You pause it and move his laptop off of him. You put one hand on his shoulder, the other over the hand fiddling with his jacket. He freezes under your touch.

“It’s fine,” you say, and you mean it. “You don’t have to apologize with me. I understand.” 

He laughs, breathless, devoid of humor. “They told me this is something no one can understand. That it’s my burden.” 

“The burden of who? Who told you that?” 

Several times he opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. His breathing is getting louder. With you stopping his hand, he looks at a loss of how to distract himself. “It’s… It’s…” He starts to rock back and forth, eyes still shut. You rub your hands over his arms, stroking through his hair. 

“It’s okay. Can you feel my hands on you? I’ve only ever read about this consoling technique; for me, a shower makes me feel better. Feeling water wash over me. The sound too. Do my hands help though? Let me hug you.” You move to embrace him, but as soon as your arms hold down over his chest, he panicks. Each time you try to rein him in and calm him down, he flinches at your touch, yelping, rolling off of his bed and crumpling to the floor. He heaves like he’ll vomit but shakes his head. 

“ _ God _ , no, stop--!  _ Stop _ , that’s-- There’s too many of you! Didn’t I save you? Why do you still, in my head--? Stop fighting, please,  _ stop _ ! You’re dragging me down, I won’t be able--! _ Stop, please, I’ll save you, I’ll save you! _ ”

“S…” 

He wore his sticker tag at every group circle. His name was written in endearing chicken scratch. You knew his name. He sat next to you at every meeting and responded to it. It was tacked right outside his door. But your heart reaches out before your tongue figures out how to work.

“ _ Sorey! _ ” 

You scramble to the floor and try again to ground him. You say the name in your heart aloud again and again, trembling, running your hand down his spine as he sobs for breath. You remember this. You remember the overwhelming suffocation, the miasma of shadow, the cacophony of tortured moans. You didn’t go through it, but  _ he  _ did, and his pain was enough for you to bleed too, solitary burden or not.

“I stand by you!” you say in a voice thick with tears. “I stand by you, that’s what I  _ do _ , I help you up when you can’t stand, I lend your strength when it’s too much for just you. Look at me, please? Look at me.”

His bangs part enough when he raises his head for him to lock eyes with yours, as steadfast as your hand would catch him if he were falling. You press your forehead to his, trying to make his breathing become even with yours. 

“It’s okay,” you say. “I’m here now.” 

His hand moves to clutch at your shirt. He nods, clinging to your words just as hard.

“That’s it. I’m here.”

“M...Mik…” 

You close your eyes. The memories rush faster but it doesn’t hurt. You wonder if it’s because you have your forehead pressed to his. Are you connected now? You try to send him all the good memories, the ones full of sun and open hills and laughter and holding hands, curled up on his bed -- back then, nights were sleepless because you two would stay up so late reading. You give him these memories that you’ve kept locked inside your heart, waiting for the person you shared them with.

Once upon a time.

“Yeah,” you breathe. “Yeah, it’s me. I mean, I’m different, s-so are you, but it’s  _ me _ . I’m so sorry I made you wait so long. I waited too, but… When I realized what happened, I...I knew I had to find you. And I did. I found you.” 

He keeps nodding and won’t stop. He’s still crying too but he’s  _ laughing _ , maybe a bit deliriously. You have to admit, you feel pretty unhinged too, but you have no idea if it’s in a good or bad way. You do feel  _ light _ . Everything falls into place in a flash, cracking you to your core like lightening. 

You feel like you can properly see the world for the first time in your -- _this_ \-- life, and you’re crying too.

You both clutch at the other. It’s for the first time, but it’s a familiar feeling. 

The last time you were together, he was the one comforting you. So now you hold him, returning the tight grip he has on your hand. 

And in the middle of this hectic storm, you tell him it’ll be okay now.

**Author's Note:**

> The backstory to this is pretty sad. The epilogue never happens in this AU, because Sorey dies as soon as Maotelus is purified. His human body had endured so much and Maotelus had kept him sustained as long as he could until the end. Sorey doesn’t even come back as a seraph as Mikleo had so hoped, but he continues to wait. He explores ruins and makes many discoveries but his heart soon takes away the joy he had in living out his and Sorey’s dream. He lives long enough to see humans and seraphim co-exist before his broken, tired heart finally ends his life.
> 
> Sorey has already been reincarnated several times meanwhile, living happy but lost lives centered around these memories and trying to find Mikleo. The memories of those he purified back as a Shepherd still haunt him, and contribute to his confusing memories, to the point he barely could tell in this story if he was seeing Mikleo’s reincarnation or not. This is Mikleo’s first cycle in reincarnation.
> 
> Phew! Yeah this AU is pretty heavy on the sads, what with the lost wandering and all, and heck their reincarnations are even in therapy as you can see, but they have the chance to finally heal now. 
> 
> Twitter, @fuwajellyfish  
> Tumblr, clears-jellyfish-dress


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